Feedback from Craig

I sent my refined concept to Craig to try get some feedback on the idea, I figured there is no point moving forward until the foundation of the game is solid. Luckily I did because he came back to me with some important questions that really did expose the holes in the game idea.

This is what he had to say:

- If he needs to 'overcome' his anger, what does that mean? Why does he need to 'overcome' his anger as opposed to embracing it and trying to understand why he has these feelings of anger?

- Suppressing anger is a proven recipe for disaster in reality, and in my opinion, it is definitely not an 'evil life force'.

- If the end comes back to a rosy scene of a perfect family in a perfect home, what kind of statement is that making about your work?

The biggest question he posed to me was, what is it that my game is trying to tell us? It was this one that I began to answer first and it really put things into perspective for me and meant that moving on to answering his other questions was relatively easy.

So without further or do,

What is this game trying to tell us?

We need to deal with our emotions as opposed to shrugging them off and suppressing them. Anger especially, as if left untreated it may result in our own self-destruction. Anger is controlling. It affects our behaviour, our relationships, and our freedom. It makes us suffer. Dealing with anger, it is commonly thought that we must get it out of our system, to vent. But the means in which many of us vent such as screaming or punching a pillow or the like are not beneficial as they lead to the practise of aggression. Instead, anger should be embraced and transformed by being mindful about it. Mindfulness allows us to identify with anger, recognize its presence and take care of it, returning us to a calm, rational state. Anger is not external; it is a part of us. Like a baby it needs to be cared for.

In this case, Franklin has grown up seeing life through rose coloured glasses, having not been exposed to anything unsafe or violent. As a result, growing up he’s beginning to see life for what it really is, and feeling things, anger, that he doesn’t know how to handle. Suppressing his anger has lead to a build up of emotion which he can no longer contain.

“You can either deal with chaos [meaning out of control emotions such as anger] now or greater chaos later.”

Fantasy, violence and physical play all have a central role in the development of children; with parents restricting what they can and can’t do, especially by means of what is safe and what is not, this limits children’s learning, their potential and their growth.

Quote taken from:

http://www.opendoortherapy.com/mfa_series_1to3.pdf